Why the CIO is becoming the most commercial role in the boardroom

My mum has asked me the same question for almost 30 years.

“So…what is it you actually do?”

I’ve explained it hundreds of times. I lead the team that look after the network, the servers, the applications and cyber security that help the business work. And more recently, AI. She’d smile politely, nod and then ask another question that made it painfully obvious she still thought I spent my day writing computer programs. My dad was a programmer, so in her mind I did the same thing, just in a nicer office. I never dared explain that it’s now called software engineering. Her head might explode.

The funny thing is, I don’t think she was the one struggling to understand the role. I think our industry is.

When I started my career, technology was largely a support function. We built systems, maintained infrastructure, kept the lights on and delivered projects. Success was measured by uptime, budgets and whether the latest implementation made it into production. Technology enabled the business, but it rarely shaped it. My job was largely about delivering technology successfully.

Today, every organization depends on technology to create value. Revenue growth relies on digital products and customer experience. Margin depends on automation, data and operational efficiency, while resilience depends on cyber security, recovery planning and the ability to respond when – not if – something goes wrong. Technology hasn’t simply become more important over the last thirty years; it has become part of the business itself. In many organizations it is impossible to separate commercial strategy from technology strategy because one simply cannot succeed without the other.

That is why I believe the role of the CIO has fundamentally changed. In fact, I’d argue it has quietly become one of the most commercial roles in the boardroom.

We all work in technology now

Over the past decade we’ve seen an explosion of technology leadership titles. CIOs, CTOs, Chief Digital Officers, Chief Data Officers, Chief AI Officers and Chief Transformation Officers have all emerged to solve different organizational challenges. Organizations have continued to reorganize their technology functions as digital, data and AI have become increasingly important, but I’ve gradually realized the titles themselves aren’t really the story.

Whether you’re responsible for technology, data, digital, cyber or AI, you’re ultimately trying to achieve the same outcome: helping the business deliver its strategy. Recent research from McKinsey’s Global Tech Agenda 2026 describes CIOs as becoming “strategy architects”, recognising that leading technology executives are increasingly shaping enterprise strategy rather than simply delivering it. The highest-performing organizations are no longer treating technology as a support function; they’re building business strategy around it.

That certainly reflects my own experience. The conversations I have with CEOs and boards rarely begin with technology. They begin with growth, profitability, customer experience, acquisitions, operational resilience and competitive advantage. Technology is simply one of the most powerful levers available to achieve those ambitions.

In fact, I genuinely believe we all work in technology now. The finance director relies on technology to improve forecasting and financial control. HR depends on it to attract and retain talent. Sales teams use it to understand customers and drive growth. Operations rely on automation and data to improve efficiency. Marketing depends on digital platforms to reach new audiences. Technology is no longer a department sitting alongside the business; it has become the operating system that underpins almost every commercial decision.

My job comes down to two questions

Over the years I’ve found myself simplifying my own role. Rather than thinking about the dozens of responsibilities that typically appear in a CIO job description, I’ve reduced everything to two questions.

1. Is our technology strategy supporting the business strategy?
2. Are we delivering it against the priorities that matter most?

Every major decision I make comes back to those two questions. Whether I’m reviewing investment, deciding whether to modernize a platform, introducing AI or discussing a major transformation programme with the board, the conversation always starts there. If the technology isn’t helping the organization achieve what it set out to achieve, then we’ve already lost sight of the objective.

I’ve also become increasingly ruthless about another simple test. If an initiative isn’t helping us grow revenue, improve margin or strengthen resilience, why are we doing it? That doesn’t mean every project needs an immediate financial return. Some investments reduce operational risk, others improve employee experience or prepare the organization for future growth, but every decision should ultimately contribute towards creating business value.

Somewhere along the way, I think many of us forgot that. We’ve become exceptionally good at discussing architectures, cloud platforms, AI models and technology roadmaps, yet the people sitting around the board table aren’t interested in technology for its own sake. They want better commercial outcomes. They want technology investments that help the organization grow, become more efficient or become more resilient. That’s what they should expect from us.

I sometimes hear people describe the CIO as the bridge between technology and the business. I understand the analogy, but I no longer think it’s true. There isn’t a bridge anymore because there aren’t two separate places to connect. Technology is woven into every part of the organization. As technology leaders, we’re no longer translating between IT and the business – we’re helping lead the business itself.

AI hasn’t changed the role. It’s exposed it

If there’s one topic dominating every boardroom conversation today, it’s AI. Every organization wants to understand how quickly it should adopt it, where it creates value and how to avoid falling behind competitors. Yet I don’t believe AI has fundamentally changed the role of the CIO. If anything, it has exposed what the role had already become.

The difficult part isn’t choosing the technology. It never has been. The difficult part is deciding where AI genuinely creates competitive advantage, where it introduces unnecessary risk and where it simply adds another layer of complexity. Cloud did the same thing. Mobile did. Digital transformation did. Every major technology wave promised transformation, and every one of them left organizations with technical debt, integration challenges, security risks and difficult investment decisions. AI is moving faster than anything we’ve seen before, but the leadership challenge remains remarkably familiar.

Gartner’s latest assessment of CIO priorities reflects this shift. The biggest challenges facing technology leaders today are scaling generative and agentic AI, optimising technology investment and defending organizations against increasingly sophisticated AI-driven cyber threats. Those aren’t purely technical challenges. They’re commercial decisions that require balancing opportunity, investment, risk and resilience.

The same message comes through in Microsoft’s 2026 Work Trend Index, which argues that every leader now has a responsibility to rethink how work is organized in an AI-enabled world. That isn’t simply about deploying another technology platform. It’s about redesigning operating models, helping people adapt and ensuring technology creates measurable business value rather than becoming another expensive experiment.

The future doesn’t belong to the most technical CIO. It belongs to the technology leader who understands how organizations create value, can influence commercial decisions, earn the confidence of the board and know when technology is the answer—and when it isn’t.

Which brings me back to my mum.

If she asked me today what I do, I think my answer would finally be much simpler.

I help organizations make better business decisions through technology.

Sometimes that means AI. Sometimes it means strengthening cyber resilience. Sometimes it’s simplifying an operating model, stopping a programme that no longer creates value or helping a leadership team make difficult investment decisions. The technology will continue to evolve, just as it always has, but the role itself has become remarkably consistent.

The best CIOs are no longer measured by the technology they deliver.

They’re measured by the commercial outcomes they create.